Without much fanfare, FINA has quietly cut Eindhoven, Netherlands from the 2014 World Cup series schedule, leaving a 7 meet series that will run from late August until early November.
The original schedule had Eindhoven in sort of an orphaned sitting on October 4th-5th, but when FINA announced Monday that there was a new title sponsor for the 2014 World Cup, Eindhoven was notoriously absent from the new schedule.
Now, there will be three clusters: one in the Middle East including Doha and Dubai; one trans-Asian cluster with Moscow and Hong Kong; and one other Asian cluster with Beijing, Tokyo, and Singapore sitting as hosts.
The dates of the meets have also been shuffled from the original announcement, with the Moscow meet being moved earlier to fill the gap of the Eindhoven event. This will leave much bigger gaps between clusters.
The 7-meet cluster will be a reduction from the last two years, where there were 8 meets, and will also create two two-meet clusters, as compared to the 3-2-3 format in the past, that may reduce the travel incentives for athletes especially based in the western hemisphere.
Eindhoven doesn’t have quite the same history as a World Cup host as Berlin did before being left out of this year’s schedule as well; the whole of the Netherlands had never hosted a meet prior to this year. The latest update, however, will leave Moscow as the only European host of the season.
Cluster 1
August 27-28 Doha (QAT)
August 31 – September 1 Dubai (UAE)
Cluster 2
September 29-30 Hong Kong (HKG)
October 4-5 Moscow (RUS)
Cluster 3
October 24-25 Beijing (CHN)
October 28-29 Tokyo (JPN)
November 1-2 Singapore (SIN)
If you follow the developments at the Dutch national swimming level you will quickly see that the money has dried up and the balance sheet has gone negative.
As matter of fact; hundreds of thousands of euro’s were lost organizing two previous meets last year.
300.000 euro’s for the Dutch Masters Meet and 200.000 euro’s for hosting the Worldcup
Furthermore 400.000 euro’s in income cannot be booked anymore in future years due to other reasons.
source + video (all in dutch).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqWtvUOs9x0
http://www.hollandswimming.nl/index.php/component/content/article/3-nieuwsflits/5675-video-zwembond-moet-fors-bezuinigen-door-tekort-van-bijna-1-miljoen-euro
Also, it would make way more sense to have Moscow and Beijing together, and then have HK, Singapore and Tokyo as another.
So who did Europe piss off? 🙂
This is a shame for swim fans in Europe and the series as a whole, as I can see fewer European swimmers competing.
To be serious, I think it’s a reflection of weak European economy situation, that FINA could not find a willing host city and European sponsors.
Or maybe that Europeans have better priorities.
… Although I cannot think of a better priority than a world class swim meet 😀
It’s just particularly depressing in a year when there are already few occasions when the best Europeans will race the best Americans/Asians/Australians etc. 🙁
Plenty of world class swim meets don’t want to pay the cost of slapping the FINA label on it, though that group usually skews toward long course (the USA Grand Prix series, Mare Nostrum, Seven Hills, Japan Cup etc.)